Oh, right! Burning bodies & plunder! After that we landed in a coastal city & pretty much everyone other than my old man Thief got their first look at *gasp* the ocean! We spent more than a small amount of time doing the "wonderment" of a "lake" large enough that you can't see the other side.

Annnnnnnnnd, as you might expect, there was the, "I wonder what it tastes like..." moment followed by the "Ah! So salty! Here, try it!" moment.

Of course, then there was the discussion of the size of the coastal city. The rest of the kids had pretty much been living in the boonies for, well, ever. So the most people they'd ever seen at once was... 70? Maybe? Yeah... the city we were in, they simply didn't realize the outlying farms were not the city. And kept wondering where the city center was until we actually reached the actual city's gates half a day in. That'll come up again. But later.

Anywho, so, I may have forgotten to mention that the "army" we had just got done butchering had hostages. Some kids from our town as well as the Stone Priest & the Cleric's grandma. And some rich kids from yonder city we just arrived in. Needless to say, we returned said kids & got the town on our good side, that's for sure. And of course, there was much merriment on our own accord, but we were still short a few kids from our town that supposedly survived the attack. No rest for the wicked.

Now, there was a festival going on, but I'll talk about that later. Lemme fast forward to some events that were happening at basically the same time, just with different party members. Sort of.

Annnnyway. So, while we're in town, I look up a few old friends from back in "the day." And what was the first thing out of their mouth when I came calling? "Thought you were dead." You sonuvabitch... That later became a thing & basically everyone who I once knew before retirement has pretty much greeted the Thief in the exact same way. Now I know how Edward Elric feels...

Well, one friend was able to hawk some of the pricey goods for us & get us another point of contact, but the latter wasn't free. Apparently another old friend had been doing bad business locally & running out merchants due to his brow beating tactics. So, they needed someone to talk to him.

They, as in the Guild.

Annnnnnd, talk to, as in stab. Multiple times.

Yeah, because the retired assassin's going to turn that down. Yeah, no. Gimme that favor, he'll be dead in three days.

We start tracking down the guy & asking questions. Turns out he's the local "boss" of a group of thugs that shakes down local businesses & maintains their base of operations at a dive on one of the shittier docks down the quay. We pay a few debts for his debtors, do some spying, poke around the building, scout his entourage. But... something's still not right.

As a result of our hawking, I've got a Ring of Chameleon Power & a ridiculous stealth/disguise roll. Thief. Yeah, I got this. However, the dude's never anywhere but the bar & always at night & he never leaves until just after dawn. He also never eats, drinks, or visits the outhouse. Like I said, something's not right.

So once again, DRUID TIME! Exhibit three.

I need someone to be in the bar but not be in the bar & while I'm good, our target is also a thief & clearly, a paranoid one. So, I ask if the Druid can shift into something small & stealthy. CAN I!? Next thing I know, we're looking up the stats for a chameleon. Keeping with that lizard motif... So she chills under a table all through the night & watches the dude. Her stealth roll is so freaking good, I'm fairly certain she can't even see HERSELF. I think her bonus was higher than my HITPOINTS.

Just before he leaves, the target wanders over to a drunk... and draws his breath from him, like breathing in his soul as it left the drunk's exhaling breath.

Uh. WTF!?

PLOT TWIST!

So, we have no clue what the hell this thing is. And apparently by "we," I mean the Royal-We, because the Cleric absolutely KILLED his Religion roll. And guess what? It's a vampire. Not like a normal vampire though. It's some Bestiary 5 Asian-style vampire thing that no ones ever heard of before. After consulting with another cleric [who also KILLS his Religion roll (because st this point, why not?, apparently clerics become well-versed in eclectic creatures from other continents as a part of their everyday priestly training], our Cleric learns he's not affected by sunlight or stakes or anything like that. What harms them, you ask?

However, what does the Cleric do? Starts running around town looking for things that are the creature's specifc weaknesses. Dude... So when he comes back, all excited about his discovery & subsequent shopping spree... I have to chew him out. Hard. Granted, I'm like, dude, nice work on digging up the dirt. But. Holy shite boy! You literally just ran around the docks looking for no less than two things that are not even slightly indigenous to this region & things that are exactly the things that the creature we're spying on fears or hates. And the guy's running a con on docks businesses. Don't you think he might keep an eye on the sale of goods that can harm, kill, or weaken him?

Dragon didn't think of that...

Fortunately... nothing came of it however. So, the Druid wood shaped the peach wood the Cleric found into wooden weapons. And we cooked the rice. Yes, that actually happened. We might have even cooked it with holy water? Yeah. That probably also happened. At the very least it was totally discussed!

As the Thief, I snuck into the bar under the guise of the bar's local Cliff or Norm & chilled while drinking all night. I had some alchemical potions with me to temporarily negate drunkenness & holy hell did I need them. Because the fight didn't happen until about 3am, where I'd been throwing them back since about 9pm. Omg, the hangover...

The vampire was flanked with his guards & the fight turned out to be about as bad as we expected it would be. Fortunately, our Fighter & Bloodrager, specifically, overwhelmed the group with sheer damage & downed most of the toadies pretty quickly. We did have to kill the vampire a couple of times as he kept regenerating back from "death." But once he was dusted, you're damn skippy we soaked his ashes in the rice & holy water. And then scattered the remains out to sea. I wonder if any gulls ate them...?

The kids were surprisingly okay with the Thief taking on a job to murder someone. But, I guess when one's a former-assassin's adoptive daughter, who happens to be a Bloodrager & another's a Druid who empathizes with carnivorous dinosaurs & another's a wannabe knight with CLEARLY questionable morals & the other's... um... hmm... well... yeah I got nothing on the extremely-healer-focused, mostly pacifist Cleric. He'd better do his Hail Marys.

And to close the night, I left a message for local Thieves by leaving the henchmen's bodies on the pier, with their heads split open by a butcher knife.

Pretty sure the Bloodrager told me it was pretty...

SPOILERS!

Next time, on the Chronicles of "Of course Brugo Did," There are FOUR Towns!